w hen cable entrepreneur Steve Myers graduated from St. Louis University in 1970, all signs pointed toward a prosperous career on Wall Street. Myers possessed an itch to make big money, an enterprising spirit and energy enough for three people. No one

who had seen the young man juggling part-time jobs and running his own businesses during his teen years could doubt his initiative. To boot, his father had been a stockbroker for almost a

half-century. Granted, Myers's grades weren't top-notch, but how much did book-learning truly matter in the world of stocks and bonds? Both father and son took it for granted that the elder's experience and contacts would smooth the way for the younger's entre into New York City's financial circles.

Much to the pair's surprise, Wall Street looked Myers over . . . and took a pass. The issue? The aspiring broker failed a standardized test designed to reveal sales acumen. One

after another, the venerable money houses with whom he interviewed told Myers that he sim- ply "didn't fit the profile of a sales guy"-the key to success as a broker. They politely sent him on his way.

Thirty-three years and millions of dollars of deals later, the chief of US Cable relishes the irony

of those early rejections. Not only has he proved to be a gifted salesman with the Midas touch, but many of his cable transactions over the years have been handled through his own broker- age, Jersey Securities. Along the way, he's made the fortunes of dozens of investors who signed on to one or more of his ventures. Today, Myers can take deep satisfaction in knowing that when it came to the most important test-building a business in the real world-he passed with fly- ing colors.

Born in New York City in May 1948 to Barbara and Elmer Ernest Myers, Stephen E. Myers grew up in Hillsdale, New Jersey, a nearby suburb. His father, already 43 when Myers was born, began his career on Wall Street as a runner in the years before World War I. A bond trader in the 1920s the elder Myers managed to avoid the fate of many investors who lost their shirts during the Crash. "He zigged when he should have zigged, and zagged when he should have zagged," explains his son.

Even so, the Myers household had its financial ups and downs. "Some years there would be a brand-new Cadillac in the driveway," recalls Myers. "Other times, a used one. He had great years and he had really tough years."

The Myers's three children all filled their hours to the brim with school, work and hobbies. Trapping muskrats, shovel- ing snow, mowing lawns and doing odd jobs were among the moneymaking activities that occupied Stwe Myers outside of class hours. "We would fill wheelbarrows full of bottles and walk a mile or so to the grocery store to turn them in for two cents, or maybe five cents each. Basically, our days consisted of school, sports, work, studying, sleeping and getting up to start all over again."

A brief stint in high school as assistant sales manager at a shoe store in the local mall sent Myers scurrying back to being his own boss. By the time he graduated from PascackValley High School in 1966, he was running a swimming pool instal- lation and house painting company during summer vacations. While dating a woman at college who spent her summers in the Boston area, Myers relocated his business to be close to her. When the relationship ended with graduation, so did the business.

The timing was perfect. A degree in finance in hand, Myers was ready to move o n to bigger things. Surprised but undaunted when the big brokerages in New York City refused to give him a whirl, he simply "got out the newspaper and started looking for what was out there besides Wall Street," he says. A notice for a real estate sales position with Horizon Land Corporation caught his eye. Says Myers: "I interviewed and decided to give it a try."

"Steve had no clue what he was going to do," recalls Michael C. Anderson, a friend and business partner for almost 30 years. "He saw an ad in the Rergen Record that said 'Salesman, no experience needed. Make $50,000 your first year.' In 1971, that was a lot of money. Well, Steve not only made $50,000 in 1971, he probably made $75,000 or $100,000, selling land."

Anderson, who joined Horizon at about the same time as Myers, was in awe of his colleague's track record: "He was an absolute animal when it came to sales. I'd never seen anybody so aggressive and so good as Steve. He would not take 'no' for an answer. If you gave him an inch, he would get in there and pry it until he had you. Stwe would do whatwer it took. And we were selling land over kitchen tables at night a lot . He'd go back to a customer's office; he'd go back to their home. He'd do anything he had to do to get that sale closed. His closing ratio was incredibly high. It had to be over 50 percent. Most people were lucky to get one out of five or six prospects, if that."

Less than two years after answering the ad, 23-year-old Myers was running Horizon's busy River Edge, New lersey office and overseeing a staff of 50 salesmen. Not only had he proved his Wall Street nay-sayers wrong, but his bank account was thriving, too.

"1 liked the fact that you could go out and make $5,000 in an evening," he says. "Our commission was ten percent. So if you sold a guy $50,000 of property, $5,000 of it was yours. In contrast, Wall Street was offering $300 a week."

Even lucrative commissions, however, had limited charm for Myers. A craving to be his own boss again soon led the restless young businessman to bid Horizon farewell and set up shop

with Dennis Tinsky, a financial planner he had met on the job. Tinsky was a very bright guy, and we got friendly, and he suggested that we go out and start

something on our own," says Myers. "He specialized in insurance, and I knew real estate. Initially we worked out of one of the bedrooms of his house. We bought properties that we then re-zoned, resold or subdivided. We might buy 100 acres, and then put together a syndication of

doctors and lawyers." Land sales and insurance made up the bulk of business for Myertin Associates, Tnc., but by late

1374, the company had also dipped its toes into the waters ofthe cable industry. "We were doing insurance, real estate and tax shelters," says Mike Anderson, who left Horizon to join Myertin in 1974. "But tax shelters are a nasty business, and the only type that really had any economics was cable television. So we started to focus on cable."

Dennis Tinsky didn't share Myers's and Anderson's budding enthusiasm for the media busi- ness. "Dennis got involved in commodities, all kinds of crazy stuff," says Anderson. "I think Steve saw the opportunity of cable in 1375 when HBO went up on satellite. He said, 'Hey, why should we raise the money for other people and give them all the upside?' So, we decided to start doing deals ourselves. Steve had a buy/sell agreement with Dennis, and they had an ami- cable break-up. Basically, Dennis took the insurance and some of the real estate, and Steve got the cable."

One of Myers's first moves was to open his own brokerage, Jersey Securities. The FCC had recently decreed that Myers couldn't sell cable syndications without involving a licensed broker- dealer, but Myers didn't want to cough up a commission to an outsider whose role would be

basically passive. Myers decided to solve the problem by becoming a broker himself. After study- ing like a fiend, he passed the "incredibly difficult" Financial Principals Exam on the third try, a

triumph for "someone who has been a 'C' student all his life," says Myers wryly. After setting up several cable syndications, Myers decided to expand into cable system man-

agement. "Cable looked like a relatively easy business," he explains. "It felt more like running a utility back then than it does now. It was like owning the water company in town; everybody had to have what you were offering. We could do two, three, four syndications a year, and then

put them in our management company, charge a fee, run the companies, and grow the cash flow by adding new services and raising rates."

The first system purchased by M.A.I. Cablevision-the company name selected by Myers and Anderson-was 1,500-subscriber Walton, New York. The price tag was around $300,000, or $200 per subscriber. Myers and Anderson had to raise $100,000 in cash to close the deal. "We tried to find ten guys with $10,000 each," recalls Myers. "Finding guys for real estate was one

Some years there would be a brand-new Cadillac in the driveway, " recalls Myers. "Other times, a used one. [My father] had great years and he had really tough years."

thing. because real estate was easy to understand. But finding investors for cable was another story. Most people had never heard of it. The closing kept getting postponed because investors kept dropping out at the last minute."

After Myers sweated bullets for ten months, the deal finally closed in July 1976, and M.A.1 Cablevision was on its way. Acquiring more systems was a high priority. While Myers confesses that he "didn't know one end of a cable from the other," a lack of hands-on knowledge didn't stop him from reveling in the sales aspect of the business.

"I enjoyed going out and convincing the mom-and-pop cable systems that I was the right guy to sell to," he says. "They had employees that had been with them for years. This was their life. And they trusted me to treat their employees very much as they did. Most of our early acquisitions were from individuals, the people who had built the original systems and had run them for ten, 15, 20 years."

Other than making $1 million by his 30th birthday-a goal he easily reached-Myers had no specific vision for the company. "Steve's a deal guy," says Jim Pearson, a longtime friend, former banker and US Cable's CEO. "Gut-oriented. Adventuresome. But grand strategy isn't something we've been famous for. He simply worked like a wild man."

By 1978, Myers had bought a half-dozen systems and become "an itty-bitty MSO," says Anderson. "Or, as Ted Turner would say, 'a mighty small operator,"' he adds. In April 1979, the pair dosed a deal on a series of microwave systems in Madison, Wisconsin, which pushed the company well over the 50,000-subscriber mark. The company had also won the confidence of Continental Illinois Bank, a huge cable lender known for backing much larger MSOs. With cable program- ming picking up momentum in the wake of HBO's success, the future looked more than a little promising.

Thanks to the growth of cable programming, a new generation of urban franchises was also opening up in the late 1970s, and Myers wanted to be in on the action. Not long after closing on the Madison systems, M.A.I. Cablevision com- mitted to building the indusq's first 400 Mhz system, in Lake County, Illinois, in partnership with Jerrold Electronics. The new technology-a jump from the then-standard 300 Mhz-offered viewers the possibility of up to 52 channels. M.A.I. bought the unbuilt Waukegan and North Chicago franchise from Marc Nathanson for $100,000, a decision that

Myers is confident that fellow Entrepreneurs Club member Nathanson rues to this day. At the time, however, building the system "was a Ieap of faith," says Myers. "The greater Chicago market was receiving ten or 12 good off-air channels, unlike

M.A.I.'s 'classic' systems, which received none. So, we asked ourselves: 'If we build it, will they come? Will the public pay for the few extra channels that we can offer?'"

The answer was a resounding "yes." The Lake County system debuted to fanfare and general plaudits in 1981. In the meantime, M.A.I. had begun targeting adjacent and nearby franchises. "From 1979 to 1985, we franchised over 250,000 homes in the Chicago market," says Myers. "These were hotly contested franchises, too. All of cable's 'big players' were in the Chicago market by then. But we got our fair share, in spite of the fact that we were one of the smallest MSOs to bid on them. Those franchises are really how we built the company."

M.A.I. also turned its eye to other parts of the country, including western New York state, South Carolina, Georgia and southwestern Texas. The company found it relatively easy to pick up franchises in the growing suburbs of cities where the incumbent cable operator had grown complacent. In Spartansburg. South Carolina, for example, the M.A.1, team got the franchises on "about 15 mom-and-pop towns, connected them with microwave and totally encircled" longtime cable provider Telecable.

"Telecable just went nuts," says Mike Anderson. "And the local city councils shrugged and told them, Where the hell have you been? We've been asking you for cable for five years.' Some of the big MSOs made huge mistakes by not paying attention to their flanks."

By 1380, M.A.I. Cablevision had 14 systems in six states and 150 employees on its payroll. The company had also decided that the time had come to give itself a name that better reflect- ed its ambitions: US Cable. Mike Anderson gleefully takes credit for the idea. "I was at the air- port one day and saw this sign for USAir, and thought, 'Boy, that must be a big plane, big air- line.' I found out it was just Allegheny Airlines. They'd taken this podunk airline and overnight changed its image with a new name. How brilliant is that? I thought, Why not do it with cable?' US Cable had a great ring and made us look like we were a big company."

"We couldn't believe we got the name," says Myers. The name change boosted the company's profile, as did the addition of Continental Illinois's

Jim Pearson as US Cable's new CFO in 1982. Thanks to the furious pace of franchising bids, Myers and Anderson were stretched to the point of breaking, sometimes working 20-hour days, always working seven-day weeks. The recruitment of Pearson, who was already familiar with the company's finances from his days at Continental, took a load off the shoulders of the two over- worked principals.

Pearson's arrival proved critical for another reason: That same year, Continental Illinois, US Cable's key backer, ran into trouble and began to reassess its commitment to the cable industry.

"Continental got taken over by the Feds," explains Myers. "Jim and I were called into a meet- ing in Chicago to discuss what we thought was a simple rollover of our $20 million line of aed- it. We had most of the line drawn at the time because we were in full construction. Instead of

our loan officer being in the meeting, we had a couple of Feds-workout people-in front of us. They said We want this thing cleaned up in 30 days.' We tried to explain that the money was tied up in plant, and if they were patient, they'd get it back. They just repeated the 30-day dead-

line. There were probably 50 guys behind us in the lobby who were about to get the same speech. So we walked outside, and I turned to Jim and said: 'Now what the hell are we going to do?'"

The two kicked into gear and made the rounds of the banks, getting turned down everywhere they went. Then Myers met Walter Corcoran, head of Hundred East Credit Corporation, a cap- tive finance company of Phillips, owner of Magnavox. Myers and Corcoran quickly cut a deal in which US Cable would switch to Magnavox equipment in exchange for Hundred East picking up the credit line and continuing to fund the build.

As critical as Hundred East's help was, it fell short of what US Cable needed to follow through on all the franchises it had piled up around the country, particularly in the Midwest. Corcoran's

Steve's a deal guy. Gut-oriented. Adventuresome. But grand strategy isn't something we've been famous for. He simply worked like a wild man." Jim Pearson

team had also made clear going in that they would want to make an exit sooner rather than later. More support had to come from somewhere, at least until US Cable started to see income from its various new-builds.

Myers reviewed his options. The company could go public, but the market was not favorable. Cable was still viewed with suspicion by Wall Street, which had trouble grasping the idea of a business that had high cash flow but nwer showed any profits. More feasible but equally unappealing was the idea of taking money from venture capitalists. Myers heartily disliked the idea of losing control over his own company, virtually a given if he were to pass the hat among outsiders.

A third option was to joint venture with another cable company. Deeming this route the least of all evils, Myers struck up talks with Comcast to partner on building a series of US Cable-held franchises in Indiana. Negotiations initially appeared to be on track. But things turned sour when it became apparent that Comcast was more interested in backing US Cable into a comer than in consummating a mutually-satisfactory arrangement. They ultimately wanted control, not a partnership, says Myers.

"A deal was never a deal," says Myers. "You'd shake hands on something, and they would come in and do the due dili- gence, and then they'd come back and they'd change this, or they'd change that. They realized they had us in a tough position, and I think were taking advantage of it."

"Comcast squeezed and squeezed," agrees Anderson. "It was too bad, because we liked Ralph Roberts and those guys," says Myers. "So we asked Jay Busch of Daniels &

Associates if he had an alternative. He said, Yeah, let me go see John Malone.' Iohn was interested. So, Jay and Stwe flew out and met John. TCI came into [US Cable's systems in] Indiana as a minority partner and gave us a construction con- tract to complete the build. They gave us the management fee contract and all their hardware and software discounts. It was a phenomenal deal for us. And it gave TCI a presence in a major market that they didn't have. So that's how our rela-

tionship with XI got started. And it was positive all the way. We had a few bumps in the road, but never a crisis. "Malone was willing to be your partner," continues Myers. "He was willing to let you make money and liked the fact

that you could be out there independently growing a separate group of assets from theirs in a mutually-beneficial rela- tionship. Whereas I think Comcast wanted to control the thing and own it."

With the financial crisis behind him, thanks to TCI, Myers pushed ahead with developing franchises and overseeing general expansion. By 1986, US Cable's tenth anniversary, the company controlled more than 100,000 subscribers in 11 states. Gross sales had tripled in five years from $10 million to $30 million. Around the country, more than 300 employ- ees looked after US Cable's assets. The company celebrated its achievements by relocating from leased space in Hackensack New Iersey to newly-built headquarters in Montvale, New Jersey, the town where Myers and Anderson had launched the company a decade earlier. The lobby of the new building boasted a two-story waterfall, skylights and win- dow walls. To wen the most casual passer-by the handsome building announced that US Cable had "arrived."

As happy as he was with his company's success and growing stature, Myers was not one for sitting still. By 1989, US Cable was eyeing new opportunities, this time overseas, in Britain. Myers and Anderson had earlier struck up a friendship with British entrepreneur Phillip Morgan, who was beating the drum for foreign investment in his country's fledgling cable industry. From where Myers sat, the United Kingdom looked to be a good bet. The upsides? High population density,

little existing cable, a common language and viewing habits that would provide a built-in audi- ence for U.S.-originated programming.

But Myers also recognized that US Cable was too small to bid on its own for major franchis- es in the U.K. To be a real player would require hundreds of millions of dollars. Plus, the U.K. didn't want cable-only systems-winning bids would go to cable-telephony hybrids. Access to big money and an experienced partner in the telephone business were vital if US Cable wanted to be taken seriously in the U.K. cable arena.

In short order, US Cable set up partnerships with telephony experts U.S. West, NYNEX and Bruncor, all of whom were willing to let their much smaller partner hold majority power. Says Mike Anderson: "We didn't make any bones about the fact that we couldn't do the telephony, and they didn't have a clue about cable. So they were good partners for the franchising aspect of it."

Within two years, US Cable and its partners hit Myers's goal of winning licenses for one mil- lion homes in the U.K. One of the franchises, in Tyneside, was at the time the third-largest ever awarded by the United Kingdom Cable Authority.

"We went off and won all these franchises-about seven percent of what was granted in the U.K." muses Jim Pearson. "It was quite an achievement. I don't imagine that we could ever do that again."

The vote of confidence was gratifying but the prospect of execution was daunting. Once the initial excitement of landing so many franchises had worn off, US Cable realized that "setting up these partnerships with all these huge telephone companies was neat and cool, but not a sus- tainable idea," says Pearson.

"Our partners wanted us to put about $100 million into each venture, for a total of $300 mil- lion," says Myers. "We had maybe $3 million."

Reality checks appeared in other forms as well. "Early penetrations in the U.K. were far lower than in the United States," continues Myers. "Here, it's usually between 35 and 50 percent; in the U.K. it was only in the teens. Plus we had miscalculated the marketing. The door-to-door sales approach that works well here was frowned on over there. And we were competing with an incumbent satellite dish provider that already had a foothold. Finally, construction had to be underground. Instead of costing you $10,000 to $20,000 a mile, there were stretches that cost well in excess of $100,000. Most of the builds in the U.K. had to be hand-dug. Cobblestone streets, picks, shovels. Construction was really rough."

Fortunately, Myers and his colleagues had not seriously banked on building out all of their U.K. franchises. "Frankly, we looked at the franchises themselves as a money-making situation," says Anderson. "We decided going in that if we could win them on a next-to-zero cost basis, we could figure out later what to do with them. Which is exactly what we did."

[John] Malone was willing to be your partner. He was willing to let you make money and liked the fact that you could be out there inde- pendently grow- ing a separate group of assets from theirs in a mutually-benefi- cia1 relationship." Stwe Myers

Between 1332 and 1334, US Cable shed its U.K. interests one venture at a time. NYNEX "made us a deal that was hard to refuse," says Anderson. "And we had an opportunity to sell our interest to US West at a profit-and did." The most rewarding sale involved the franchises that belonged jointly to US Cable and Bruncor. In 1994, the partners sold their holdings to Bell Cable Media, then in a major expansion phase.

T h e profits were just incredible," notes Anderson. W e got in and out of the U.K. with very little capital investment-practically none," he continues. "Very little soft cost,

when you look at it relative to the profits we made, which were astronomical. So we joke that we have the best return on

investment of anybody that's ever gone to the U.K." Besides filling the company's coffers, US Cable's overseas adventures had whetted its appetite to move into telephony.

"We had built a cable telephone system in the U.K. with US West, so we were beginning to understand the telephone busi- ness," explains Myers. "We weren't neophytes anymore."

Before getting in too deep in telephony, Myers decided to lighten his load of cable assets. "The thing that was chewing us up were the programming costs," explains Myers. "To put all of our systems together and get a fair valuation from TCI for them made all the sense in the world."

Anderson adds: "Our initial deals with TCI were coming toward contract end anyway. It was time to redo them or roll them up into one new deal. So we did, and in the process took a lot of chips off the table."

In the mid-1990s, US Cable handed off all but eight of its cable assets to TCI and bought U.S. Fibercom Networks, a reseller of long distance and value-added s e ~ c e s . Anderson confesses that he "never liked the acquisition from the begin- ning" but Myers felt otherwise. Because opportunities overseas appeared to be more lucrative than the domestic market, US Cable threw its energy into developing a global enterprise.

'Thanks to our U.K. experience, we had started to think of ourselves as international entrepreneurs," says Myers. "So the

idea of starting an international phone company just didn't seem out of reach." Myers and his colleagues dubbed their new business USFI Telepassport. In two years' time, the company grew from $0

revenues to nearly $50 million. Offices popped up in Tokyo, London, Frankfurt and other major business centers. Not

surprisingly, success prompted plans for expansion, to be financed by an IPO. "We put together a business plan that called for raising about $100 million," says Myers. "Smith Barney and Credit

Suisse agreed to underwrite the deal and valued the company at $200 million. We launched our road show in Tokyo, swung through Europe and were in the middle of the U.S. portion when our bankers called their office and got bad news: the stock market had crapped out. 1'11 never forget it. We were aboard my first jet. When they hung up, they said, 'Steve, we advise you to pull this deal,' There I was, with half-ownership of this thing. Once you pull an IPO, it's one of the worst things you can do. So I ended up writing lots of checks. I had $25 million of my own money in it."

Anderson sums it up: 'We could have been a significant player internationally, but the stock market didn't cooperate. Timing was bad. The telecom sector had dropped 30 percent over the preceding 12 months. So we found some industry buyers and got out in 1997. It was a painful experience, but at least we didn't take a complete bath on it. After that, we decided to keep our focus domestic."

Telepassport's disappointing destiny was at least partially offset by the highly-promising outlook for another US Cable

telephony venture: US Telcom (now operating as Smart City Networks). US Telcom started in 1984 as Centel Facilities Communications (CFC) and successfully integrated telephone services and selected hospitality services for the Houston Sports Association, owner of the Houston Astros and operator of the Astrodome and several nearby hotels.

Early in 1995, US Cable teamed up with Marty Rubin, a seasoned telecommunications indus- try entrepreneur, to acquire CFC. In the eight years since, Smart City has expanded from its Houston roots to become the nation's leading telecom provider to major convention centers.

Clients range from the Javitts Center in New York City to convention sites in Las Vegas, Orlando, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Antonio.

In 1995-the same year he bought CFC-Myers decided to sell US Cable's remaining cable assets to X I . After 20 years in the cable business, he and his partners felt the time was right to cash out. The industry was consolidating, and valuations were enticing. Plus the proceeds of the sale could be put to good use on the telephony side of the business.

In May 1996, US Cable announced publicly that it would sell its 50 percent interest in four Chicago systems to X I . Another four systems jointly owned by US Cable and X I would also go on the block. By July 1997, US Cable was mostly "cable" in name only. Myers's only regret was the timing of the Chicago sale: "The market moved, and it moved in X I ' S favor. I wish we could have sold 12 months later. But it was a great price at the time. A good decision, too."

"Steve wasn't married to his cable properties, that's for sure," says Anderson. "He wasn't emo- tionally attached to them. So when the price was right, it wasn't hard to pull the trigger. And Jim Pearson's skillful negotiations got us top dollar."

For Myers, the sale of his cable systems meant more than a hefty addition to his bank account. After years of running at full tilt, he was ready to slow down and enjoy his financial success. Relaxation was still a relatively new concept for him. In 1993 he had surprised himself by agree- ing to-and thoroughly enjoying-a 94-day cruise on a powerboat in the Caribbean with his girlfriend. "It was the first time I saw what kicking back was all about," he says. "1 didn't think I could do it. But I read a bunch of books, learned how to scuba dive, did some fishing. It was

great." By the time he set foot on dry land again, Myers's priorities had forever changed. "That cruise

was a life-clarifylng event," he says. Gone were the 20-hour days and seven-day weeks that had been the accepted rhythm of his life almost since childhood.

Although Myers is content to let longtime associate Jim Pearson run the day-to-day show, he continues to weigh in on important strategic decisions. In 2000, for example, when the opera- tor of the regulated telephone services of the Walt Disney World properties came up for sale, Myers gave Pearson his full support to go after the deal. Smart City beat out several industry lead- ers and in early 2001 closed on the business, renaming it Smart City Telecom. First-year revenues

Thanks to our U.K. experience, we had started to think of ourselves as international

I t entrepreneurs, says Myers.

and cash flow blew away Myers's projections at a time when the telecom sector was stumbling badly. To boot, in July 2001,

the Smart City Network affiliate was awarded an exclusive Internet Service Provider (ISP) contract for the Orange County Convention Center in California. The icing on the cake was the awarding of exclusive rights to Smart City Networks to operate all seven of the Disney convention centers located in the sprawling Walt Disney World complex.

In spite of the allure of telephony and the success of Smart City, Myers and his team could not entirely resist getting back into the cable game. Almost as soon as the ink was dry on the sale to TCI in 1997, US Cable entered into another partnership with the cable giant, this time to acquire systems that brought 150,000 subscribers into US Cable's universe.

Having a few cable systems in his stable gives Myers a regular reminder of his business roots. Without question, he says, his "extensive career in cable" gave him the experience and insights to diversify successfully into other telecommunica- tions ventures.

Looking back on that long career, Myers deems "working for myself" his most important business decision, made in 1974 when he broke up his partnership with Dennis Tinsky. Taking that risk led step-by-step to the business accomplish- ment in which he takes the most pride: "building one of the largest independently-owned MSOs." Although Myers regrets that his first two marriages fell victim to his drive to succeed, he is quick to note that his greatest personal accomplish- ment consists of the three healthy, happy children that resulted from those unions.

As for the fire in the belly that drove him to "work like a madman" for most of his life, Myers today is more interested in fanning other entrepreneurs' dreams: "One of the things 1 think that's been my strength has been the ability to identi-

fy gurj that can make something happen. And I would rather sponsor some young guy that's willing to put it all on the line and break his back, than get back in there and do it myself."

And what advice would Myers have for such a neophyte?

"I would tell him or her that there are no shortcuts in life," says Myers. "I would tell him that relationships are critical. That your Rolodex, who you know, and who you can get to know are as important as anything. It makes all the difference in the world in terms of how difficult it is to get from point A to B. I would tell him that you need to be able to lay it all on the line. If you're not a risk-taker, you can't make it happen. You can't be afraid of losing it. Plus, you have to have integrity. And, more than anything else, you've got to be willing and able to work your ass off."